


sang the words and i made you mine

by notbang



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, blasphemy in the name of banter, making a fool of oneself out of love for one's girlfriend, musicals as aphrodisiac
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22168741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notbang/pseuds/notbang
Summary: "This was…soincredibly tailored to my interests, on so many levels. And it makes my present totally awful in comparison. Which is no fair—you’re not supposed to be able to creatively one-up me. You were supposed to be bad at this, and get cranky, and cheat."Rebecca's got something special in mind for Christmas, and Nathaniel is better at it than either of them expected.
Relationships: Rebecca Bunch/Nathaniel Plimpton
Comments: 12
Kudos: 45





	sang the words and i made you mine

**Author's Note:**

> Only slightly-belated Christmas fic that took me about four months to finish. Oof.

“So I’ve been thinking…” Rebecca begins, dragging out the words in exaggerated nonchalance, walking her fingers up the exposed skin of Nathaniel’s forearm arm. 

The work day is over and he’s shed his uniform—sans jacket, sans tie, sans shirtsleeves stretched out and secured at the wrists—but he’s yet to have shaken off his mental preoccupation, focus very firmly still set on his current case. He doesn’t answer her at first, absorbed in whatever report he’s reviewing, taking a moment to register she’s talking and, beyond that, ascertain she’s expecting a response. 

So by the time he rolls his shoulder beneath her hand, eyes still firmly glued to the screen, to toss out, “Did it hurt?” Rebecca has already all but forgotten her own opening train of thought, scrunching her nose in the confused stretch of seconds all her brain can muster up in explanation is the setup to some cheesy pick up line. 

“Huh?”

“All the thinking,” Nathaniel elaborates. 

As soon as she catches on she pouts and jabs him swiftly in the ribs, effectively folding his body in half on a defensive reflex.

“Ow,” he grunts in protest, finally tearing his gaze away from his computer in favour of safeguarding himself against the onslaught of any other potential physical attack. 

“I’ve been thinking,” she begins again, ignoring him, “about Christmas. And the act of gift giving, specifically.”

“Huh, okay. I always thought that was universal, but I’m happy to explain the concept to you if you’d like.”

Nathaniel’s never really been big on Christmas—he’s always just automatically observed it in that obligatory, upholding-of-tradition fashion his upbringing has always been so steadfastly infused with. He gets it, though—that it’s exactly the sort of excuse for silliness and overindulgence that Rebecca would love—and he can’t help but follow up his snark with a fond smile.

She pokes out her tongue and shoots him a look that’s pure scorn, voice all withering and dry until it inevitably gives way to the bubbling hot spring of her excitement. “Ha ha. I’m talking about you and me, dummy, and the time-honoured holiday tradition exchanging of presents with one’s beloved.”

Nathaniel quirks an eyebrow, the hint of a smirk dancing on his lips, and sets his laptop to the side, expectant.

“So, as you know, certain purse strings have been a little tighter for me this year, what with the being a small business owner of a pretzel shop situated in the lobby of a law firm that admittedly sees very little foot traffic, my tendency to rent out my spare room for little to no cost a fortnight, and the exorbitant ongoing cost of therapy and music lessons—”

“Rebecca, if this is about money, I can lend you—”

“Up-bup-bup,” she interrupts holding up a hand. “Let me finish. The point is not that I don’t have money, and you know how I feel about charity.”

He raises his eyebrows. “That you have no shame and will gladly accept it, given the right circumstances?”

“Well, yes,” she admits. “But this is not one of those circumstances. I’m not borrowing money off you to buy you a Christmas present. You can’t pay for your own present.”

He waves her off. “You don’t have to get me anything.”

“What? Yes I do.” She sits up straighter on the couch. “Wait a second. Is this going to be one of those, like, weird sayings or something, from your dad? That presents are stupid? Do you not want to do gifts? Were you not planning on getting me a present?”

Nathaniel scoffs, and reaches over to close his laptop as if she can somehow see into the tabs he has bookmarked in his browser via some kind of proverbial, technological x-ray vision.

“Of course I’m going to get my girlfriend a Christmas gift. I’m not barbaric.” As an afterthought, he adds, “My father loves sending gifts, actually. Just not for sentimental reasons—he thinks it’s a prime opportunity to show off one’s wealth.”

“Okay,” she says, apparently spotting her lead-in, “that’s what I’m getting at. I was thinking this year, instead of focusing on dollar value, we could put all our effort into making our gifts extra sentimental.”

“I’m not following.”

“What if, instead of buying each other something, we made it a rule that we’re not going to spend any money.”

She’s got her eyes wide and her eyebrows canted upwards in that imploring, gut-punch way that rarely fails to win him over, so Nathaniel’s pretty sure whatever it is she’s talking about, he’s going to end up agreeing to it—he just has to navigate his way over to the same page first.

“If we’re not spending any money, then how do we get the gifts? Shoplifting? Kind of against the spirit of the holiday, don’t you think?”

“We make them!” she says brightly, fingers twinkling in a supporting argument of jazz hands, undeterred, as per usual, by his light sarcasm. “Or find them. Or organise them in some creative, cost-free way. For example,” she continues on, gesturing towards her keyboard where it’s tucked neatly into the corner of the room, “if I were to write you a song. Or perform an enticing interpretive dance. Or, if I had any artistic skills whatsoever, paint a romantic portrait of us on the wall beside the kitchen sink.”

He considers this for a moment, brow furrowing steadily in suspicion. “Is this one of those things where you say you don’t want me to buy you anything, but then you get mad at me when I don’t?”

Rebecca laughs, a gentle tinkling sound that smooths away any of the initial, instinctual resistance that was gathering in response to her request.

Then she turns serious, raising her hand. “I solemnly swear that this is not a trap. So. Whaddya say? Whaddya say?” She alternates pointer fingers to jab him in the ribs. “Whaddya say?”

“I say, that voice is the opposite of the way to get me to agree to anything.”

Apparently taking him up on a challenge he wasn’t exactly issuing, she creeps closer, eyes in full-blown Bambi mode, warm palms sliding suggestively up the flat of his thighs. “Nathaniel?”

He can’t help it—he swallows, and his eyes go straight to her mouth. “Mm?”

“Say you’ll indulge me this one little thing.”

He can’t completely smother the bark of laughter that forces its way out of him at that—as if he’s ever done anything else. 

“If that’s what you really want,” he says, “I promise I won’t spare you a single cent.”

He can feel the stretch of her answering grin against his own as she curls into him to offer his reward.

* * *

Heather slides a glass of eggnog towards him before he’s even properly settled in his stool.

“Hmm. I don’t want this, though,” he says, mockingly apologetic, long fingers waggling over the rim.

“I know,” Heather says, “but you’re going to take a minimum three large sips of it anyway, because I’m giving you a drink on the house in the spirit of the holidays, and that’s just, like, the polite thing to do. Plus it’s made from eggs, so. Ninety percent protein, am I right?”

“It’s also ninety percent heavy dairy, and two hundred percent sugar, I’m sure.”

“Mm, no. That’s not how math works, so you’re safe.” She picks the glass up to slide a napkin beneath it, nudging it closer with an admittedly imposing sense of finality before stretching her body across the bar to rest on her forearms. “Let me guess—you don’t know what to get your girlfriend for Christmas, but you’re not going to ask Paula for help because you know she’ll tattle on you to Rebecca, and I’m the next best thing.”

“No,” he denies, far too quickly, and when Heather just continues to stare at him, unimpressed, he raises the eggnog to his mouth and admits around a delicate sip, “Maybe.”

“Cool, so now we’ve got your dumb male posturing out of the way, here are some suggestions I prepared in anticipation of this moment. Idea number one.”

He raises his eyebrows expectantly.

“A fireman calendar where all the firemen are played by you. Josh could probably hook you up with the outfit. I will be requiring a copy for the back room, though. Just for like, posterity.”

Canting his eyes heavenward, he draws in a deep breath through his nose. “Okay, we’re done here.”

Heather straightens with a grin that suggests it’s precisely the reaction she was awaiting, crossing her arms as she watches him gather his belongings. “But you didn’t even listen to all my super smart ideas.”

“I’ve heard enough, thank you.”

“Whatever, dude. Just don’t be all put out when Rebecca likes my tastefully fire-themed art direction over whatever uninspired, last-ditch effort you end up throwing together. Now that I think about it, I’d look way better in those overalls than you, anyway.”

He makes a point of downing the rest of his drink before he leaves.

* * *

He doesn’t even go to his parents’ house with the tape in mind.

In lieu of any other leads, he’d figured a giant bouquet of his mother’s roses couldn’t go astray, even if he knew Rebecca would immediately dock points for coasting on the coattails of an old gesture. That had similarly ruled out one of his other idle considerations—foraging through her notebook for a song of hers to sing—but that felt a little too close to reading her diary, a point of contention he’d rather not relive. Not to mention he had a sneaking suspicion her own gift for him was going to come in a similar form.

When the maid lets him in, though, she informs him his mother is up in the attic with a kind of delicate tone that immediately sparks concern inside his chest, roses and Christmas presents forgotten.

He’s half expecting to find her draped over a discarded armchair, staring off into the shadows somewhere with that vacant look she gets sometimes that’s always frightened him a little, ever since he was a child. Instead he’s forced to stop mid-tentative-knock when he’s nearly taken out by a pair of removalists juggling a dusty chaise lounge. 

“Mom?” he calls, jumping out of the way with a confused frown.

“Nathaniel? Is that you? Oh, what a lovely surprise. Over here, dear—watch those frames leaning up against the wall.”

It’s not vacancy that his mother’s exuding at all, once he spots her; nor the manic kind of energy he’d learned to quietly steer clear of in his youth. She’s dressed, somewhat unusually, not in a dainty calf-length skirt or bias-cut dress but in brown slacks and a simple blue shirt, the white cotton glove-clad hands perched on her hips a display of present-minded productivity.

“What’s going on? What’s all this?”

“Oh, just a bit of spring cleaning, Nathaniel. Nothing serious. You know how much your father hates clutter.”

“You’re packing away Albert?” he questions, stepping over the spare plastic sheeting to help her push the bronze and marble greyhound further into the room. “What’s Gramps going to pontificate loudly on next time he’s loitering in the foyer?”

His mother smiles at him in a way that’s more eyes than mouth—like it’s still some joyful little secret between them, the way they can talk about things in a way they’d never thought to before. “You’re welcome to take him, if you’d like. Though I’m not sure where you’d sleep, since he’s almost the same size of that shoebox of an apartment you insist on living in.”

“You’ve never been to my apartment,” he reminds her with a gentle laugh.

“Because it’s too small to entertain in, dear. You told us as much yourself.”

Nathaniel tips his head in acknowledgement, knowing he’s never exactly fallen over himself to extend such an invitation to begin with.

“Was I expecting you today? Your father is away on business.”

This he knows as well; it’s become somewhat of a habit of his, since his return from sabbatical—scheduling his visits to pointedly coincide with engagements in his father’s calendar. “No, and I’m sorry—I should have called ahead.”

“Don’t be silly, Nathaniel—you’re always welcome here. Look, you’re just in time. I’ve found a box of your old school things.”

Not entirely sure whether he’s defaulting to the unquestioning obedience that was bred into him in this very house, or actually content to oblige his mother’s proffered trip down memory lane, he lets her steer him over to the collection of trophies that weren’t impressive enough to warrant prolonged display, stacked up neatly on piles of old papers he surmises to be the accompanying certificates.

Something catches his eye, though, lined up down the side of the packing crate, nondescriptly packaged and sporting a substantial layer of dust.

He winces, nose scrunching as he blows it off. “What are all these?”

His mother glances up from where she’s already strayed back to the other side of the room, distraction painted plainly across her features. “Hmm? Oh, I’d say they’re recordings of you at various events—some championship or other, the school play, your graduation.”

He smiles indulgently as he lowers them back into the box in favour of thumbing through the stack of certificates, only pausing once he gets to the end, registering her words don’t ring entirely true. “Hang on—you taped me in the school play? Did you and Dad even come to those things?”

His mother blinks at him, for a moment dissolving back into her usual waifish, fluttery self. “Well I didn’t make the tape, no. I imagine that nice woman did—Hilda, or Helga—”

“ _Heidi_ , Mother,” Nathaniel corrects.

“That’s right—Heidi, or one of the other parents did. She was always so fond of you, Nathaniel.”

Trying not to let the frown cloud his features too much, he shifts his focus back to the black cassettes, scrutinising each label until he finds the one he’s looking for _._ He casts his gaze around the room before turning his attention to his mother, fingers rapping against the black plastic.

“Do you have somewhere I can play this?”

* * *

They spend Christmas Eve at Rebecca’s house on the insistence that her couch is better suited to _activities—_ the kind that require a ridiculous inflection, of course—and because her exhaustingly sassy employee-slash-roommate has gone home for the holidays, affording them rare evening alone time. The decorations are a little more festive than what he permitted her at his place, so he supposes it’s a more appropriate backdrop regardless.

He gives her the roses when he gets there, her face blooming into a delighted grin when she answers the door to him cradling the oversized bouquet, a deviation from the uniform classic red interspersed with white multicolours that look like their petals have been dipped in blood. It’s not an especially romantic association, but his mother assured him their unusual colouring was impressive, and Rebecca’s appreciative coo as she relieves him of the bundle suggests she’s not averse. 

“Merry Christmas!” she chirps, tucking the flowers protectively into her side as she bounces up on the balls of her feet to kiss him hello. “Are these from your mom?”

“Well, they’re from me, actually,” he corrects, somewhat pointlessly. “But they’re from her garden, yes.”

Never one to be waylaid from what really matters, Rebecca’s focus narrows in on the brown paper bag hanging at his side.

“That my Christmas present?” she asks with a jerk of her chin in its general direction.

“Didn’t I just give you flowers? So greedy.”

She pokes out her tongue and him and pivots, pirouetting into the kitchen in search of a vase to put them in. 

Nathaniel trails after her, gaze lingering on her bedraggled, lopsided excuse for a Christmas tree and the unevenly-knitted tree skirt spread out below it that he recognises as one of her recent projects. Underneath the tree are two misshapen, lumpy and clumsily wrapped presents, as well as a large manilla envelope with his name on it.

He’s just finished placing his bag down beside it when Rebecca ambushes him, her arms shooting out around his waist to hug him firmly from behind.

“Hi,” she mumbles against his shoulder blade. 

“Hi.”

She grabs on tight enough that when he straightens he takes her briefly with him, her feet lifting off the floor as she emits a delighted shriek before sliding down his body, back to solid ground.

“Dinner?” he queries, prompted by the sound of the oven timer buzzing.

“And a Christmas movie,” she agrees, and sashays back towards the kitchen.

* * *

He’d expected Rebecca to wake before him.

When he rouses, though, she’s still snoring, hair a dishevelled cloud across the pillow, cotton damp with a small puddle of drool. He’s not a good enough liar to pretend he finds it particularly becoming, but it doesn’t repulse him the way something similar once might have done. If there’s anyone he’s going to permit soaking shared bedlinen with saliva, he supposes it could only be Rebecca.

When he comes back from emptying his bladder she’s still down and out for the count, and his eyelids start to feel heavy again so he slips back under the paisley bedspread and orients himself behind her, his spine echoing the curvature of hers. Whether from the dip of his weight on the mattress or by sensing his heat it’s then that she begins to stir—body undulating, cold toes curling and unfurling against his shins.

She rolls into him, yawning, legs insinuating themselves between his. He wonders if she’s awake enough to remember what day it is.

He nuzzles into the side of the neck and kisses her there, her whole body tensing as it tickles. “Merry Christmas.”

“Mmm, Merry Christmas,” she purrs, even as she’s tracing the band of his briefs.

Merry Christmas, indeed, he thinks.

But then she claws her way up to his shoulders, nose bumping clumsily at the shell of his ear.

“Let’s do presents,” she breathes, and as the warmth of her body leaves him all he can do is groan.

* * *

Rebecca’s back in bed, ramrod straight against the headboard, manila envelope resting across the bare flat of her thighs before he’s even finished pulling on his sweatpants. By the time he ambles back into her bedroom, gift bag in hand, she’s all but operating under the extreme delusion that her extra-firm mattress is interchangeable with a bouncy castle.

“Open mine first,” she blurts as soon as he’s settled, thrusting the envelope towards him and clenching her fists in front of her mouth with nervous excitement the second their cargo has been released.

Huffing out a laugh, he does as he’s told, skimming the length of the flap until he can pry it open with the blunt edge of his thumbnail.

Tugging on the creased edges poking out the top, he slides out several pages of sheet music, scrawled in Rebecca’s uneven handwriting. 

Regardless of the clarity—or lack thereof—of the notation, Nathaniel hasn’t had to read music since his primary school piano lessons. It may as well be Greek to him, and his blank expression must tell her as much.

“Its our new theme,” she elaborates with pride. “Like, you know how soundtracks have leitmotifs, like a part of the score that’s associated with certain characters, and it’s repeated when—you know what, never mind, it’s a whole thing, and I’ll play it for you later. Open the rest.”

As prompted, he reaches back inside the envelope for the thicker stack of papers situated towards the bottom, folded in half and crudely stapled down the centreline. The cover of the booklet is decorated in sharpie and glitter glue, and he winces as some of the unstuck glitter flakes off and falls down into the bed.

“ _Sex coupons_ ,” he reads aloud. He tilts his head at her. “Hmm. Why do I feel like I just got a discount code to a soup kitchen?”

She snatches the book out of his hand to smack him with it. 

“I wasn’t done,” he says, plucking it out of her grasp and dislodging more of the glitter in the process.

He makes a show of it, after that—making sure to take in every word, humming appropriately, feeling her eyes on him and her body simmering with impatience beside him all the while.

About halfway through, he pause to raises his eyebrows. “This one feels like it’s more for your benefit than mine.”

“Don’t try and downplay your oral fixation. I know what you’re about.”

He’s barely reached the end when Rebecca apparently reaches her upper limit on self restraint, shoving the errant papers aside, sitting back cross legged in a display of utmost preparedness, the desire to have her gift bestowed upon her as soon as humanly possible implicit in the gesture.

“Did you want something?” he asks. “Cup of coffee, perhaps?”

“Gimme,” she whines, and makes grabby hands at him until he caves and hands it over.

She tears into the brown bag with gusto, hastily discarding the secondhand tufts of tissue paper from his mother’s overstuffed drawers, digging through the excess of filler he’s tauntingly wrapped it in like she’s excavating a mine site, or enacting the world’s most careless archaeological dig. 

It amuses him somewhat, the way her eagerness would be so frowned upon by his family, who carefully eased up layers of tape and neatly folded each sheet of gift wrap as if it were going to be kept for reuse. The paper’s destined for the recycling and Rebecca doesn’t bother leading it to believe otherwise. Nathaniel files it away as one of the endless, inconsequential little contradictions he loves about her, inspiring fondness even as it makes him flinch.

Having finally extracted the much-coveted contents, she drops the paper bag down the side of the bed in favour of holding the cassette up to the light for proper examination.

Her eyes narrow at the scratched-off label, mouth eventually curling into a mischievous grin as she asks with a suggestive eyebrow waggle, “What’s this? Like a sex tape?”

He scrunches up his face. “Sorry, you think I’m gifting you a sex tape? Of me? And… and _who_ , exactly?”

Rebecca shrugs, unconcerned. “Or a blank cassette so we can make one. Admittedly I do have some concerns, given that I have been publicly humiliated on social media in the past, but I think you and I both know I could certainly be persuaded.”

“Why would we use a—you know what, never mind. It’s not a sex tape, and we will not be making a sex tape.”

She makes a show of pouting at him in that theatrical, quintessentially Rebecca way she reserves for letting him know just how unfun he’s being. 

Seconds later, though, she’s flinging back the covers, shimmying into her pyjama bottoms and heading for the door, tape securely in hand. 

“Where are you going?”

“Um, to watch your weird little tape. Obviously.”

“What? Where? How?”

She shoots him a confused smile, then speaks very slowly, as if concerned he’s had a stroke. “In the living room. On my VCR.”

And well. He hadn’t exactly planned for _that_.

* * *

Admittedly, part of the reason he’d conceded so easily to impending humiliation was the reasoning that she wouldn’t be able to watch it immediately; that maybe he could plan to be out of town for the weekend when she finally did. He’d always figured she’d be determined enough—he just hadn’t wagered on her being pre-prepared.

“Of course you still have a VHS player,” he sighs. 

He sets the two steaming mugs down on the coffee table beside where he’s neatly stacked her sheet music and the coupon book, and settles back into the couch to watch her wriggling around on the floor on her stomach in front of the television, fussing with what looks like a complicated tangle of cables. When she re-emerges from her full-armed stretch behind the unit, the sleeve of her nightshirt is peppered with clumps of dust.

“Duh. I kept a VCR _just_ so I can watch my copy of _—”_ She cuts off suddenly, lip dragging through her lower teeth. She flashes him a tight, subdued smile before starting again. “It doesn’t matter. Anyway, this thing is built like a brick. It’s going to outlive me.”

His pre-emptive cringe dissipates some at the pure giddiness she exudes as she slingshots back to the couch, scrambling up beside him on the cushions and tucking her legs neatly underneath herself, body pitched forward with anticipation.

“Well?” he prods, keen, now that they’ve started, to rip off the bandaid of his inevitable embarrassment. “Aren’t you going to press play?”

“I’m still trying to imagine what’s on here.”

“You should probably stop. Or it’ll never live up to your expectations.”

“So you’re admitting it’s lacklustre.”

“Will you hit play, already?”

Thankfully there’s no title card to give the game away; her face scrunches into a thoughtful frown as she tries to make sense of the blurred outlines slowly shifting into questionable focus on the screen. Something about the overture must sound familiar, though, because she tilts her head, lips mouthing along with shapeless sounds.

He can tell the second she catches on because she’s partway into a nod of recognition when she freezes, eyes going comically wide as she whips around to stare at him. “No.”

Eyes firmly focused on the screen but unable to fight the heat rising in his cheeks, Nathaniel nods curtly in the direction of the television. He hasn’t even made his entrance yet and he’s already wincing so hard his teeth hurt, while Rebecca is starting to vibrate at an impossible frequency beside him.

Of course she correctly identifies his lanky silhouette before he does, caught up as he is in trying to remember anything of the production at all beyond the sweaty approximation of robes and the needling from his teammates that had quickly dissolved into nothing once it turned out accidentally nabbing the lead in the musical came with certain benefits, like catching the eye of the hottest girl in school that just so happened to be playing a village person in her own pursuit of extra credit.

Rebecca’s hand flings out to squeeze vice-tight at his thigh, and when he works up the courage to sneak a glance at her she’s enraptured, spellbound, stunned into an atypical silence. 

And then he starts to sing.

It’s not _bad_ , per se—the drama teacher, insufferable perfectionist that she was, would never have permitted his participation had he been incapable of carrying a tune—but it’s not particularly great, either, between the sound quality of the tape and the lack of formal training and his vocal chords as filtered through impending puberty. 

It’s not entirely clear whether stuffing her entire fist into her mouth is her conscious intention, but Rebecca makes a good attempt at it anyway, bouncing up onto her knees on the couch like a rabid sports fan holding her breath before a game-winning play.

Hot with shame, he makes to push to his feet. “I’m just gonna let you—”

“ _No,_ ” Rebecca says immediately, throwing her entire weight across him to pin him into place. “This is… this is the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and I absolutely need you here with me while I watch it.”

He could push her off if he really wanted to, but instead he makes himself relax into the koala-style vice-grip she’s currently executing on his body, her chin digging in where she rests it atop his shoulder.

“Oh my god, your _hair_ ,” she whispers, one of her hands fisting in the front of his shirt, and her eyes start to shine with held-back tears until she’s wheezing like an asthmatic caught in the smoke machine at an underage disco.

Teenaged Nathaniel’s hair isn’t all that different to modern day Nathaniel’s—he’s had practically the same haircut since 1998, after all—but he knows exactly what Rebecca’s zeroed in on. For the first few scenes it could have been passed off as glare from the lights, but now they’re dimmed and tinted a cool blue it’s damningly apparent: his tips have been bleached towards blonde.

“We don’t have to watch it all,” he says, reaching for the remote only to have her snatch it predictably away.

“ _Au contraire_ ,” she scoffs, “it is of the utmost importance that we do.”

“I regret this already.”

“Ssh! My sexy lord and saviour is speaking.”

As he rolls his eyes appropriately heavenward he has to remind himself he brought this entirely on himself.

* * *

They make it about halfway through Rebecca remembers her phone exists, such is the apparent power of his stage presence.

“Uh-uh, no recording,” he admonishes, pushing it down before the smartphone lens can properly focus. “That’s copyright infringement.”

“This entire tape’s existence is copyright infringement!” she protests. “And it’s worth it, because this is too good not to be shared with the world.”

She tries to raise her phone again and he wrestles her for it, relenting only when she holds it up over her head, out of reach.

“This tape was intended for an audience of one—you. Not you and everyone in your snapchat contacts.” 

Rolling her eyes, she blatantly types out _omg wait until you see what nathaniel got me for christmas!!!_ in a new message window to Paula, muttering rude, unintelligible nonsense at him under her breath all the while, tossing her phone further down the couch once she’s done and raising her open palms at him in a dramatic suggestion of _happy now?_

Despite her insistence that they watch the whole thing, she does pause it not long after that, setting the remote down on the arm of the chair and turning to him with great solemnity.

“This is the best present ever,” she says, eyes wide. “Truly. I kind of feel like I should save some of it, so it can go on forever.”

He clears his throat, still flush with embarrassment and unable to meet her gaze. “Well, I know it’s not much, but I’m glad it made you laugh, if nothing else.”

She turns serious suddenly, pushing back up onto her knees to grasp his face in her hands, twisting him towards her, determined to catch his eye. “Nathaniel. It’s not a joke to me,” she says, brow creasing, then, off his incredulous look, “Okay, so it’s a little funny, in the way that watching silly home movies always is. A lot funny. Hilarious, even. But this is so much more than that—you get that, right? This was… _so_ incredibly tailored to my interests, on so many levels. And it makes my present totally awful in comparison. Which is no fair—you’re not supposed to be able to creatively one-up me. You were supposed to be bad at this, and get cranky, and cheat.”

“So you _did_ want me to buy you something,” he accuses, drawing back, already internally kicking himself for not buying back up jewellery and mentally sifting through his options for express delivery.

“No, no! I’m just admitting that maybe, deep down, part of the present for me was going to be seeing you fail miserably at it.” Her thumbs squeeze where they’re still pressed into his cheeks. “This was a hundred times better than anything you could have bought me. Really. And I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little turned on, right now.”

Relaxing some, he gives himself over to her playfulness, letting the smirk twitching to life under her thumbs take hold. “Is that so?”

“Uh-huh. Having visual confirmation of your stint as a theatre kid really gets my musical motor running, if you know what I’m saying.”

“Well,” he says, tilting his head, “I’m not sure I’d classify myself as a theatre kid. I dabbled, more than anything.”

Rebecca hums, stretching, cat-like, as she re-orients herself into the prime position to slide into a straddle across his lap. “Don’t try and contest my ruling. The camera doesn’t lie.”

She tugs him down towards her by the back of his neck, close enough to scrape at the flesh of his earlobe with her teeth, and he watches her eyes flutter shut as he raises his knee, pressing into her where it’s slipped between her legs, the breath coming out of her in a shaky hiss that he feels right down to the tips of his toes. All the residual restless energy from watching her watch his tape thrums through him with renewed purpose, his uncertainty regarding his gifting ability giving way to an embarrassing neediness for her physical affirmation of her approval of his choice.

She rocks into him, chasing the pressure, but the moment he pitches forward with the intention of capturing her lips her eyes fly open and she retreats, drawing back, just out of reach.

“Uh uh ah,” she tuts. “Don’t you have some form of payment for that?”

He blinks, taking a second to catch up. “Wow, you were right,” he says, frowning, once he’s got there, “making our sex life transactional— _such_ a fun treat.”

“I mean it seemed to work for you pretty well that first time, seeing how you kinda fell in love with me after.”

He makes another move for her mouth but it’s too late—she’s committed wholeheartedly to her performance of denying him access, and pushing down on the flare of irritation he leans past her to the coffee table to snatch up the booklet, tossing it unceremoniously on her lap before crawling back over her.

“You can’t just throw the whole stack at me,” she protests. “You have to pick one.”

“Well, I pick all of them.”

She quirks a brow. “Aside from that being a slightly ambitious undertaking, given we have to be at your parents’ house by six, that’s against the terms and conditions of the promotion—only one coupon valid per day. Plus, one of them involves costumes, so it does require forty eight hours notice.” She shrugs innocently. “Those are just the rules—I didn’t make them.”

“Except for that you did,” he counters with a tilt of his head, and she only grins maddeningly at him in response. “Where’s the voucher where you stop talking?”

“I think there’s another name for that one.”

He groans and, fast recognising he’s not going to get anywhere without playing by her terms, sits up to flip through the booklet. He messily tears out the page as soon as he gets to _anything you want to me_ and flashes it at her, triumphant.

“Can I see that?” she asks, frowning with feigned seriousness. “I need to check the fine print. It’s just, I’m not sure kissing is included, even with the—”

“Okay,” he bites out, patience officially depleted. “That’s enough.”

“There’s an asterisk there!”

She squeals something about due diligence as he secures her by the waist and hoists her over his shoulder, ripped coupon trapped between his teeth, her half-hearted attempt at a struggle completely undermined by the breathless giggles she collapses into as he deposits her none-too-gently on the bed after stumbling blindly down the hallway towards her room.

He pointedly holds the paper up for closer inspection before theatrically crumpling it into a ball and pressing it up against the line of her lips. She opens her mouth with a bark of a laugh, allowing him have his fun of stuffing it inside only to spit it immediately back at him. His nose wrinkles as the soggy lump thwacks off his chest and lands beside them on the bedspread.

“Are we done, now?” he asks, tracking its movement before turning back to her, brows raised expectantly. 

Rebecca’s eyes narrow, her voice turning seductive and coy. “A girl can only hope we’re just getting started.”

* * *

“Can’t believe you just wasted your free pass on the world’s most vanilla sex position,” she says, giving him a final provocative squeeze before letting him withdraw. “Even if the name was tangentially appropriate.”

Nathaniel slides back into the bed behind her, condom discarded, and raps his fingers affectionately against her hip. “You say that like you’d never be open to anything else otherwise.”

“Fair point,” she mumbles, immediately rolling over to bury her face in his armpit, and he knows she’s only conceding in the wake of post-coital haze. He figures he has approximately ten minutes before she’s back to needling him again, her love to tease only exacerbated by the ongoing high of the holidays.

“Hey,” she says, voice muffled where her cheek is still squished in an undignified manner against his arm. “I never got to make out with the male lead before. I’m so cool. The girls s’gonna be so jealous.”

He raises his eyebrows, fingers skating absently down her back. Her brain must be complete mush if she’s slipping enough to grant him _cool_ , even if only implied by association.

“Felt kinda sacrilegious, though. Getting fucked by Jesus.”

Nathaniel chuckles, the surprise of it catching in the back of his throat with a cough. “Yeah, but it’s his birthday, right? So good for him.”

He feels her laughter more so than hears it—the stretch of her mouth, the rolling exhale of her breath and the light shaking of her body where it’s pressed to his. 

Shifting positions until she’s more on top of him than beside him, Rebecca reaches up without looking to drag a hand through the crest of his hair. “Mm, but I gotta say… I kinda liked him better with the frosted tips.” 

He rolls his eyes, grunting when she smothers a yawn, stretches, and proceeds to awkwardly clamber over him to slip out the other side of the bed.

“Was that really necessary? And where are you going?”

“It was the most economical route, so yes,” she says haughtily, bending, to his disappointment, to step back into her underwear. “I’ve got to start getting ready, or we’ll get stuck in shitty LA traffic and you’ll blame me, even though you and I both know you spend just as much time doing your hair as I do.”

Twisting onto his side to better track her erratic path around the apartment, he quips, “Suddenly you care about being punctual? First I’ve heard of it.”

“Don’t wanna miss martini time. I’ve got _so_ many new things to discuss with your mother.”

* * *

She comes back from the bathroom fifteen minutes later, curls all bouncing and damp, absurdly draped in his comically too-big bathrobe and humming the titular song from a certain show happily to herself.

“Don’t you have new music to show me? Something slightly more original, hmm?”

She waves the sheet music at him, one step ahead, as always. “I’m gonna need a moment, though. It’s kind of hard for me to focus on my _craft_ when I’m being plagued by the haunting, tender melodies of Andrew Lloyd Webber and teenage Nathaniel’s dulcet tones.”

“I’m never going to hear the end of this, am I?” he sighs as he passes her, taking his cue to head to the shower.

She grins as she sits down at her keyboard, arranging the crumpled papers across the music stand. “Oh, maybe in like, a million years, A.D.”


End file.
